RAND Project

A Security Posture Assessment (SPA) is a scoring system meant to measure the current baseline security of the network and systems by discovering known vulnerabilities and weaknesses. Vulnerabilities in the systems present a threat to the information it protects, and if successfully exploited will result a negative impact on the organization.

Nlets is currently undertaking a project to accurately calculate and, ultimately, improve our SPA score. Nlets will use this assessment to tighten both network and system security of all devices in the Nlets environment.

The assessment is based on a score of 1 to 10, with 1 being the most secure and 10 being the least secure. After thorough scanning and calculating, it was determined that Nlets’ initial score is approximately a score of 7.5. Our goal, therefore, is to decrease our SPA score as much as possible, creating an the most secure environment possible, while still maintaining a user-friendly network.

Numerous tools were evaluated to help with the assessment scoring. QualysGuard was selected after thorough review and has been a tremendous help in evaluating the current status of the Nlets systems. The security team has now moved into the remediation phase of this project. This means systems are being patched and updated, lowering the overall SPA score daily.

The technical team is targeting a score of 5.5 or lower by year-end of 2010.